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http://usacracing.com/news/silver-crown/item/8030-final-hoosier-hundred-at-the-indy-mile-to-be-held-may-23

Ask Frank

Well That Blows.

I have never been to a SC race but with the 1 mile tracks do they actually keep accelerating until the end of the straights like cars on shorter tracks?  Or do they get to max speed and run the last half of the straight at their top speed?

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

What State Fairgound tracks are left?   I know Iowa just closed theirs and New York (Syracuse) 3 years ago.

I can't say in total but just looking at the remainder of the USAC Silver Crown schedule for this year there are only two remaining dirt miles on it: Du Quoin and Illinois state fairgrounds.

The mile at Sedalia has been gone for years.

The damn horse people finally won at Indy.

This sucks. At least Larry Rice isn't around to see this, he loved that race. 

Randy Martin (great guy) from just up the road in California, MO won the last Sprint Car race at Sedalia ever held on the Mile Track...

Good question. Too bad nobody answered, but at least nobody gave you a hard time for asking...

I've only been to Silver Crown races on 1/2 miles, so I'm curious too...

They run down the staright as hard as possible sometimes burping the throtle to asure making the left hand turn. Quite a site to see and hear as they come down into turn 1..

They need to look at getting the big cars back out to California

Sacramento mile -Calistoga 1/2 - or some other big horse track thats just sitting out here like Vallego mile would be amazing.

Santa rosa mile?

Funny how things go.  In 1800 to early 1900  every county fairgrounds had a horse race track.  The auto came along and tracks changed to auto races.  Now some are going back to horses.  The Syacuse mile is now a horse deal.  Some have gone from horse to auto to country clubs.  How many tracks went from horses to auto to shopping centers.  It will continue.

This is a real shame. The big mile dirt tracks are pretty cool. I saw races at Sacramento and Del Mar. They both had lousy surfaces, but it was still great to hear those cars sing on that big track and watch them hauling down that front straight. I think the horse people have hated the racing people for a very long time.

From Racer.com.....

It was the second-richest race on the IndyCar schedule and only the Indianapolis 500 and Daytona 500 paid more to win. It was sold out every year. It was nationally televised by ABC’s Wide World of Sports. It was celebrated with special sections from the city’s three newspapers — The Indianapolis Times, News and Star.

And it featured all the stars of American open-wheel racing.

For the better part of three decades (1953-75) The Hoosier Hundred was the most prestigious prize in dirt racing and only took a back seat to that other show run in Indianapolis during May.

“It meant everything if you were a young driver trying to make a name in USAC and it paid damn good too,” said A.J. Foyt, the all-time winner (six) of what became a fall classic in Indianapolis. “I loved that race and it’s a damn shame to hear it’s going away.”

Foyt’s comments came on the heels of the announcement that this May 23rd will be the final time USAC’s dirt cars will perform at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. The historical mile oval is being converted from dirt to an all-weather surface of crushed limestone to be utilized year-round for harness training and parking for the Indiana State Fair.

The news was not a surprise because the horse contingent has been trying to get rid of auto racing at the Fairgrounds for years. And, to be honest, despite the efforts of promoter Bob Sargent, the annual dirt race on East 38th Street is a shadow of those glory days when 25,000 people packed the place.

From its early beginnings with Triple A, the Hoosier Hundred had no equal in stature and purses. Foyt, Al Unser (four wins), Jimmy Bryan (three), Rodger Ward (two), Mario Andretti (two), Bob Sweikert and Parnelli Jones grew their reputation and bank accounts.

“It was the biggest purse next to Indianapolis,” said Super Tex, who collected $18,268 for his victory in 1965 — equaling what Mickey Rupp made that year for finishing sixth at the Indy 500. “It paid $100 to lead a lap and I led 97 laps in 1966 and made $17,000 even though my brake pedal broke and I finished second.”

A.J. Foyt, Bobby Marshman, Parnelli Jones, Rodger Ward and Don Branson at the Hoosier Hundred drivers meeting in 1963. Image by John Mahoney.

The Hoosier Hundred was a big deal at the box office and the pay window because if you were an Indy driver then you also had to be adept on the dirt. DuQuoin, Springfield, Sacramento and the Fairgrounds were part of USAC’s Championship Trail and those places played to full grandstands because A.J., Ward, Mario, Rutherford, Ruby, Rufus, Hurtubise, Sachs, Marshman, Larson, McCluskey and the Unsers were always there.

But then USAC made the first of several fatal mistakes. In 1971, it removed the dirt races from the national championship and created a separate Silver Crown series. That didn’t have an immediate affect on attendance as Foyt, Andretti and Big Al still ran dirt races for a few more years but it gradually took its toll. Without Indy’s big names competing, the crowds began falling and national television no longer had any interest.

More importantly to USAC’s faithful, it cut the artery to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the future generations of midget and sprint car drivers because the versatility of running dirt and pavement was no longer required in IndyCar.

“They never should have taken the dirt cars out of the championship,” continued Foyt, who promoted the Hoosier Hundred from 1997-2001 and also tried a spring race called the Hulman Hundred. “That was a big mistake because car owners needed guys who could run dirt, road courses, short ovals and Indianapolis but that all changed. And not for the better.”

For now, Sargent will be trying to give the 64th and final Hoosier Hundred a memorable sendoff as Silver Crown boss Kody Swanson goes for a record fifth win a row (Al Unser scored four straight from 1970-73).

“The thing that’s really sad is that we were going in a positive direction and had a good crowd last year,” said Sargent, whose passion has kept places like Terre Haute up and running. “We may have a couple of options for 2020 but it’s too early to say what they are, so we’ll just concentrate on trying to fill the place next month.”

A.J. reckons he’ll try to talk Parnelli into one last trip to the Fairgrounds.

“The Hoosier Hundred was a big part of my career and the history of Indy cars,” said IndyCar’s all-time winner. “I’m just glad I was around for those days.”

There is a pretty cool video on Facebook of an onboard during qualifying at Duquoin in 2017, with Shane Cockrum. They're using a GoPro Hero S5 for the video and it uses GPS to display the speed on the video. In my head from what I remembered they were hitting ~130 mph at the end of the straights, but in looking back at the video, he was actually hitting ~150 mph! Pretty crazy going that fast on dirt without a ton of downforce to keep you stuck to the track. So short answer yes, they are most definitely accelerating right up to the turns.

I have only seen one Silver Crown race at the Minnesota State Fair paved half mile oval.  I can't recall if it was in the 70's or 80's but I think that was the last open wheel race held there before they went to one ASA Stock Car race only.  Our State Fair closed the half mile which used to be one of the top stops for the IMCA each year and ran USAC races as well.  For allintents and purposes in my eyes the place might as well have been closed by the time they went from 10 days of racing to the one day of Stocks.

The reason given for closing was that renovation would cost too much then they renovated and added a permanent stage for concerts.  The thing with these Fairgrounds tracks closing is that most Fair boards consider auto racing part of their history and not anything they want to oversee now.  They look at eliminating the dirt tracks as progress as if racing is a thing of the past.  Fairgrounds racing is going to eventually be a thing of the past as the support of the non-racing Fair board members is no longer there.

Stan Meissner